Amloh, November 11
Efforts are being made by the Punjab Agriculture University (PAU), Soil Conservation and Agriculture departments to bring down cost of production in agriculture, to improve the yield and save underground level of water by adopting modern techniques.

For this purpose, farmers were being provided awareness through seminars and workshops said a progressive farmer, Balvir Singh Jaria, who was recently honoured with D.S. Dhariwal Award by the PAU.

Mr Jaria was speaking at a function organised to launch laser-levelling machine at the farm of Darshan Singh Jaria at Dharamgarh village near here yesterday.

Dr Balwinder Singh Butari, coordinator, laser-levelling techniques emphasised the importance of levelling the land with modern techniques. Traditional methods of levelling the land are cumbersome, time-consuming and expensive. About one-fourth of water was wasted in unevenness of the fields, increased weeds and uneven maturing of crops. It led to reduction in the yield, besides poor grain quality, Mr Butari added.

The Divisional Soil Conservation Officer, Mr S.K. Khanna, said laser-levelling machine had been launched at this village in Fatehgarh Sahib district for the first time in the state.

Ludhiana, November 11
More than 500 children will take part in various activities to celebrate Children's Day at Sutlej Club on November 12.The celebrations would be divided in two sessions- morning and evening. The competitions include declamation contest, poem recitation, singing competition, painting competition, rangoli competition, G.K.written test, writing competition, antakshri, healthy baby contest, dance competition, bey blade competition and fancy dress competition.

Mr Sanjay Arora,general secretary, and Mr Sanjiv Dhanda,cultural secretary,at a press conference here yesterday said that there would be added attractions for the kids which included ring stalls, feed the Noddy, shooting gallery stall, elephant ride and camel ride.There will also be a special modelling show by kids and youngsters of the club on this occasion.

Ludhiana, November 11
The NCC Army Wing of the GGN Khalsa College, in collaboration with the Recruiting Branch of the Indian Army, organised a seminar on 'Career in the Army' on college campus here today.

The seminar is a part of the ongoing 'Mission Career Program' of the Army whereby officials from the Army conduct seminars in various colleges to inspire students to join the Army.

The speakers at the seminar were Lieut-Col Ritu Raj Naruka and Major Dr Kurien. Prof Lt Manjeet Singh (NCC Officer) welcomed them.

Motivating the students to make their career in Army, various training programs and courses were offered. Asserting that 20,000 vacancies to be filled in the Army, he said instead of running after MNCs, they should strive to serve their nation and fellow countrymen by joining Army.

"A profession beyond comparison' remarked Major Dr Kurien while making students familiar with the eligibility criteria for joining the Army.

Amloh, November 11
The Punjab Government had recently, under the ICT project, appointed computer teachers on contract basis in government schools.

But no computer teacher was ready to serve in schools situated in remote rural areas.Reason:no bus service existed in such areas.

To tide over the problem, substitute computer teachers were appointed in backward-area schools on daily wages where they had been working for the past seven months.

But now their future has become uncertain as they would be replaced by regular teachers after new recruitments.

Mr Baljinder Singh, state president of Substitute Computer Teachers

Union, said, while addressing mediapersons at Bhadson village near here today, the union representatives had met the Deputy Chief Minister, Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, and were assured justice but no step had been taken in that regard as yet.

The union had urged the Chief Minister to regularise their services on the basis of their experience and their qualifications.

Ludhiana, November 11
Prem Bhushan Goyal,a well-known writer of child literature in Punjabi,has been selected as Shiromani Sahitkar for the current year and he would be presented a prize of Rs 1 lakh,a medal and a siropa, besides a citation plaque by the Chief Minister of Punjab,Capt Amarinder Singh, at a function to be held in Patiala.

Mr Goyal hails from Jaitu and is an alumnus of Brajindra College, Faridkot, and Mohindra College, Patiala.He holds postgraduate degrees in English and Hindi literature, but started writing in Punjabi in 1954 when he was still a student. He is the founder-president of the Literary Society, Jaitu, that organised many literary and cultural events in the area.

His first book,’' Sade Rakhe Veer Sipahi' (1965), won a great applause.His next work 'Sade Panchi' was hailed as 'a solid contribution to the Punjabi literature' by Gurdial Singh, the Jnanpeeth award winner. His book” Hathi Sada Saathi” has been adjudged the best book in children literature for the year 2005 for which he has been conferred with Shri Guru Hargobind Award. His other books are” Dr Zakir Husain”,” Saade Shahid”, “Bhai Kanhiya”, and “Mano Billi”.

Goyal also weilds his pen in the fields of criticism and essay writing. He has many translations to his credit. He has also been the editor of Punjabi Duniya, Jan Sahit (Punjabi), Punjab Saurabh (Hindi) and Prawaz-e - Adab (Urdu). He retired as Deputy Director, Languages in 1993.

Ludhiana, November 11
Computer Carnival-2006 at Sacred Heart Convent School, Sarabha Nagar, Ludhiana, concluded here today. Dr H.K Grewal, Principal, Guru Nanak Dev Engineering College, Ludhiana,who was the chief guest 
motivated the participants from different schools to work towards excellence.

The guest of honour, Mr Vicky Tikoo, from INTEL distributed the prizes along with the chief guest.

The results of the final day were:

Cybermedia team trophies- winners- Sacred Heart Convent Sarabha Nagar, Team members Aayushi & Nikita. Runners up-Sacred Heart Senior Secondary School, BRS Nagar, Team members, Sheikhu Clair & Nitin Garg . II runners up- BCM Arya Model School , Shastri Nagar.Team members Aayush & Manik

Consolation- St Annes' Convent, Chandigarh-Vishvesh & Sneha

Cybecaption- I ,Sacred Heart Convent School, Sarabha Nagar, II Sacred Heart Convent school Sarabha Nagar, III- BCM Sen Sec School, Chandigarh road, and Guru Nanak International Public School.

Overall Trophy was won by Sacred Heart Convent School , Sarabha Nagar.

Ludhiana, November 11
It is ironical that instead of celebrating the birth centenary of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh, the Indian Government is seizing the progressive literature on Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his comrades.

Informing this to media persons in a written statement, Comrade Ajay Pal, state convener of Naujwan Bharat Sabha, Ludhiana, disclosed that a few days ago the Maharashtra Government had seized progressive and revolutionary literature on Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his comrades from a book exhibition at Chanderpur. It is worth mentioning that no book has been banned or declared illegal among the seized literature. The majority of the books seized by the local police have been published by Rahul Foundation, Lucknow, which is a non-commercial institution engaged in the cause of spreading revolutionary ideas of Shaheed Bhagat Singh and his comrades. Is it for these ideals that Shaheed Bhagat Singh and scores of his revolutionary comrades kissed the noose of the gallows? Isn't it a undeclared ban on such healthy literature? Do our despotic rulers deserve the right to own the legacy of these great revolutionaries?

It is a fact that at the pace with which our contemporary governments have been implementing the profit-seeking policies of privatisation, the resentment among the people, particularly youth against these policies, is piling up with the same pace. They fear that the revolutionary ideology of Shaheed Bhagat Singh may add fuel to the fire. They are only interested in spreading his distorted image as a terrorist and are paying only lip service to these martyrs . Moreover, they are afraid that the revolutionary legacy and glorious heritage of these martyrs may inspire the youth to change the present scenario of status quo, which is in favour of only a selected few. Mr Ajay Pal , convener of the sabha, said:"Inspite of all odds pro-people forces of these martyrs will continue their task of spreading revolutionary ideas among the toiling masses.

Ludhiana, November 11
The Punjab Cooperative Minister, Mr A.S.Samra, today presented a draft of Rs nine lakh to the Punjab Agricultural University representative Editor (Punjabi), Mr Gurbhajan Singh Gill, towards subscription of farm literature published by the university.

This draft is for the subscription to life-membership of Punjabi monthly magazine ‘Changi Kheti’ and ‘Rabi and Kharif Package of Practices for crops’ published by the university.

The draft was presented at a function in Jalandhar, where Mr Samra addressed representatives of the agricultural co-operative societies of seven districts of Jalandhar division.

He declared that directions had been issued to all cooperative societies to start a state-wide library movement to promote literature in agriculture and allied fields and promote scientific farming.

He also said that a state-level cooperation day will be observed at Nakodar on November 20 where Chief Minister, Captain Amarinder Singh, will preside.

The minister reviewed the working of the agricultural co-operative societies and impressed upon the need to procure costly farm machinery and make it available to all farmers on custom hire basis.

The Jalandhar division Joint Registrar, Co-Operative Societies, Mr Kamaldeep Singh Sangha, has played an instrumental role in launching the campaign to promote scientific farming and setting up of rural libraries to spread knowledge through farm literature.

Speaking on the occasion, he said once economic condition of the farmers improved, it would be easy for them to return loans taken by them. At present, he said, 80 per cent of the societies in the division were engaged in helping the farmers in scientific farming. As many as 360 cooperative societies had subscribed to the university literature which would benefit farmers in 1300 villages.

Thanking the Minister and the Joint Registrar for their keen interest in the activities of the PAU, Mr Gurbhajan Singh Gill said literature played an important role in giving agriculture a boost.

He welcomed the announcement of the Minister that farm-literature library movement would cover the entire state.